Mubarak Regime Is Going Down

DailyKos

Breaking: Police Siding with Protesters in Egypt. Mubarak regime falling.

by OllieGarkey     Fri Jan 28, 2011

Al Jazeera has LIVE video: http://english.aljazeera.net/...

UK's The Guardian newspaper is now reporting that Egyptian police are siding with the protesters. This is exactly how Tunisia fell to democratic forces. We are now seeing the same shift occur in Egypt.

"[The Regime] is already falling. It can't stop." Said a State Journalist to Jack Shenker, a reporter for the Guardian.

This comes on the heels of the news that El Baradei, one of the regime's most famous opponents, has been taken into custody.

This is the biggest political shakeup since the fall of the Warsaw pact. The protests have moved out of Tunisia, the protesters are winning in Egypt. Yemen and Lebanon are expected to see further protests today. The Anonymous hacking group is planning to make attacks against Algerian government websites.

I will continue to update this Diary as the news moves forward.

Update Scarce posted the audio report.

Update:

The police have now given up fighting the protesters. The police and protesters are now talking, with protesters bringing water and vinegar (for teargas) to the police. Afternoon prayer has just been called and hundreds are praying in front of the mosque in east Alexandria.

Much more reading

Technorati Tags: Egypt Collapse,Mubarak,Current Events,Breaking News

As Egyptian’s Take to The Streets For Real Democracy, Obama Loses His Voice

   It is a funny thing with our Presidents over the years. They will stand up while giving their speeches about how all countries should have “ real democracies “ with their citizens having more human rights and such things,but, when the citizens of a country such as Egypt actually take to the streets wanting a better government and more rights, our President (s) suddenly lose the will to speak up and tell the current leaders of said country that perhaps it is time for a change. Obama, mister democracy himself, is no exception to this rule. In the case of the uprising in Egypt, he may be keeping his mouth shut because the United States sends billions of dollars to the soon to be toppled (I hope) Mubarak regime.

"The fourth issue that I will address is democracy," he declared, before explaining that while the United States won't impose its own system, it was committed to governments that "reflect the will of the people... I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere."

"No matter where it takes hold," the president concluded, "government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power."     2009 Cairo Speech

   So President Obama. Do the people of Egypt not count in the fight for a “ real democracy?”  You talk the talk, but now you cannot/will not walk the walk when it comes right down to it.

Al Jazeera

Similarly, president Obama has refused to take a strong stand in support of the burgeoning pro-democracy movement and has been no more discriminating in his public characterisation of American support for its Egyptian "ally". Mubarak continued through yesterday to be praised as a crucial partner of the US. Most important, there has been absolutely no call for real democracy.

Rather, only "reform" has been suggested to the Egyptian government so that, in Obama's words, "people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances".

"I've always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform - political reform, economic reform - is absolutely critical for the long-term well-being of Egypt," advised the president, although vice-president Joe Biden has refused to refer to Mubarak as a dictator, leading one to wonder how bad a leader must be to deserve the title,

    A State Department spokesman had an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday.  Go HERE to watch it if you have the time. Get educated!

    Barack Obama! Open your mouth and say the D-word

Technorati Tags: Egypt,United States,Democracy,Fight for Democracy,Barack Obama

Social Security In Deficit?

  Who would have thought that Social Security would be running in the deficit category after all of the reports out that have been saying that it would be in good shape for years to come? It is now being reported that the Social Security trust funds will be depleted sometime near 2037.

                           Yahoo/ A.P.

The massive retirement program has been suffering from the effects of the struggling economy for several years. It first went into deficit last year but had been projected to post surpluses for a few more years before permanently slipping into the red in 2016

This year alone, Social Security will pay out $45 billion more in retirement, disability and survivors' benefits than it collects in payroll taxes, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said. That figure nearly triples — to $130 billion — when the new one-year cut in payroll taxes is included.

   Of course, all of those baby boomers will begin hitting the retirement age and applying for benefits also, so we can all look forward to an even bigger lag in those S.S. trust funds. Our lovely Congress says that it will replace the shortfall, but that will only add to our already massive deficit.

    Why do I get the feeling that you and I are being set-up by our politicians so that they can then come in with a big list of cut-backs that we will have to have in order to keep Social Security solvent? This will be the excuse for raising the retirement age and for cutting our benefits also.

   We are about to get screwed royally!

Technorati Tags: Social Security,Deficits,Baby Boomers,Current Events

Republicans:What The Tea Partiers Do Best

   You can count on more of this to come to an area near you.

Original Article

Tea party FAIL leads to state agency takeover of county's finances

by devtob      Wed Jan 26, 2011

Nassau County, NY, just east of NYC on Long Island, is one of the wealthiest counties in the country.

But, after electing a tea party Republican county executive in 2009, it cannot balance its budget, and today a state financial oversight agency (imposed after decades of GOP misrule led to a $100 million bailout in 2000) seized control of the county's finances.

The new tea party county executive, Ed Mangano, had cut taxes, but not much spending, leaving a deficit of at least $50 million in its $2.7 billion budget. So the Nassau Interim Finance Authority (NIFA) now controls the county's books.

Details, below.

The Newsday division of Cablevision presumably has a story about this, behind its stupid paywall, so here's some background and quote from the New York Times story linked above and the Daily News' coverage.

From the Times:

The move, which came after months of steadily more ominous threats and a downgrade of Nassau’s debt by a credit-rating agency in November, turns the oversight board into a control board, with vast power to rewrite the county’s budget and veto labor contracts, borrowings and other important financial commitments.

As a first step, the control board ordered the county government to rewrite its budget by Feb. 15 omitting cost-savings items that the board has called specious or too risky.

snip

"Some places manage their way into fiscal problems, and other places are beset by social forces, many of them outside of their own control," said Steven J. Hancox, a deputy state comptroller who oversees local government. "Nassau has had a history where the populace has enjoyed a variety of services, and those cost money. It doesn’t really matter where you are; when the money dries up you have tough choices to make."

snip

The takeover was a stinging rebuke to Nassau’s county executive, Edward P. Mangano, a Republican who took office a year ago after upsetting a popular incumbent in 2009. Mr. Mangano had repeatedly said the budget was balanced, and then insisted there were ample contingencies to cover any shortfalls. But the authority said that many of his assertions were unfounded or unsupportable.

The "variety of services" includes three 18-hole and one 9-hole golf courses, ocean and bay beach parks, and scores of pools, athletic fields and tennis courts.

Not that there's anything wrong with that -- parks, etc., add a lot to the quality of life anywhere, but such services cost money. 

The takeover vote was unanimous, among a board that includes Conservative Party activist and Nassau County resident George Marlin, who had this to say to the Times:

The county’s 2011 budget is built on a foundation of sand.

The Daily News had more Marlin quote:

Nassau County for many years believed it could continue to spend at a rate that far outpaced the growth of revenues. That resulted in major problems a decade ago. Unfortunately the politicians didn't learn; there are expensive union contracts. Ed Mangano has inherited a huge fiscal mess.

Maybe so, but Mangano made the mess messier by pushing through energy and property tax cuts, which are popular, but problematic since tax cuts ALWAYS lead to less tax revenue.

Property taxes in Nassau County are extraordinarily high, top-five in the nation, but so are the level of services -- education, police/fire/EMS, Medicaid, parks, etc.

After Nassau County's fiscal crisis/bailout 11 years ago, Democrats won control of the county for the first time ever and were able to manage its finances.

Now the same cannot be said for the tea party Republicans of Nassau County.

Technorati Tags: Nassau County,Tea Party,Republicans,Deficits